Reviewed by

Christopher Armstead

It’s time to have a little fun.  Or at least as much as can be had when your ex-girlfriend user her x-ray vision to etch profanities into your forehead, tosses your car out into outer space and throws sharks at you.  But these things happen when your ex is an insecure, severely neurotic, definitely insane super hero as Uma Thurman is in ‘My Super Ex-Girlfriend.’

 

A comic book geeks wet dream is what this one is, at least for a little while.  Imagine your girlfriend is Diana Prince.  Simple enough girl though she does have an amazing body under all of those clothes.  Really amazing.  Turns out Diana is actually Wonder Woman.  The fact that she wanted to tie up with that freaky rope all of the time should have tipped you off, but alas it didn’t.  Worse yet, you can’t tell anybody.  Imagine the cred you would receive once you told the cats at the bar how you curled Wonder Woman’s toes (If it seems as if I’ve given this way too much thought, I haven’t.  It just seems that way).  Problem is Wonder Woman can kick your ass.  Actually, she can kill you pretty easily if she wanted too, simply by thinking hard.  This makes breaking up with her, to say the least, a calculated risk.  And when that risk goes bad, we have one angry super ex-girlfriend.

 

Matt Saunders (Luke Wilson), on the rebound from yet another warped relationship, is not too interested in getting back into the game until he sees the bookish, uptight Jenny Johnson, the alter-ego for the super heroine G-Girl, on the subway.  Though a little hesitant at first Matt’s sleazy friend Vaughn (Rainn Wilson), who’s advice Matt seems to take no matter how absurd, urges his boy to take the risk and go for it.  Matt does, is rejected, a purse snatcher appears, Matt chases, retrieves items and next thing you know, he has a brand new, albeit very strange girlfriend.

Matt Saunders (Luke Wilson), on the rebound from yet another warped relationship, is not too interested in getting back into the game until he sees the bookish, uptight Jenny Johnson, the alter-ego for the super heroine G-Girl, on the subway.  Though a little hesitant at first Matt’s sleazy friend Vaughn (Rainn Wilson), who’s advice Matt seems to take no matter how absurd, urges his boy to take the risk and go for it.  Matt does, is rejected, a purse snatcher appears, Matt chases, retrieves items and next thing you know, he has a brand new, albeit very strange girlfriend.

Though Jenny is needy, controlling, jealous and neurotic, she does have a rather amazing figure under all of those clothes.  Really amazing.  And as for the sex… let’s just say it brings down the walls.  Matt soon has an unfortunate encounter with Professor Bedlam (Eddie Izzard), G-Girl’s arch enemy, which forces Jenny to reveal her true identity to Matt.  Once you find out your girlfriend can fly, what’s the FIRST thing you’d want to try?  Anyway the fun of doing a superhero soon wears off as Jenny’s neurosis takes over, plus Matt thinks he’s in love with his co-worker Hannah (Anna Farris).  Matt ends the relationship, based on the advice of his sage friend once again, and that’s when his begin to escalate.

Entertainment these days can be hard to come by but My Super Ex-Girlfriend delivers.  Director Ivan Reitman, who has brought us such classics as Ghostbusters and Stripes knows how to pace a comedy with the best of them, and that’s what this is first and foremost; a comedy.  Not a super hero movie.  It would probably suck as a superhero movie because, quite honestly, G-Girl is a pretty crappy superhero.  She’s self-centered, selfish, whines, complains, bitches, sometime doesn’t feel like saving the day and doesn’t have bullet proof clothes.  But I guess if you think about it, were superheroes were real people, they’d probably be a lot like G-Girl.

There a lot of funny scenes in this flick, and fans of the superhero genre will definitely get good laugh out the majority of them.  Uma Thurman, partly due to the fact she’s stands a good 7 foot 2 posses the physicue (a Bugs Bunny term) to be superheroine and the acting skills and comedic timing to make throwing a shark at an ex-boyfriend very funny.  About that shark thing… If I’m a shark, and somebody throws me through a window, I’m thinking my main focus would be finding me some water because, like, I CAN”T BREATHE!  I’d worry about chomping dude later.  But that’s just me.  If  I was a shark thrown through a window.

And not one to let big brother Owen (I assume he’s older.  I guess I could check but I’m not gonna) hog all the glory, Luke Wilson is totally convincing as the sad sack overwhelmed dude, forced pretty much to play straight man to Uma, Rainn, Anna, Eddie Izzard AND Wanda Sykes.  But he handles it well.

But as is typical these kinds of films, it totally veers out of control at the end as it searches desperately for a happy ending, and files completely off the tracks.  Though there a lot funny situations and scenes, there are times where you sit and watch a joke in complete silence.  Uh, Mr. Reitman, that one didn’t work.  And Wanda Sykes sucked.  It hurts me to type that, because she was the best thing in ‘Over the Hedge’ and I don’t care what you thought about ‘Pootie Tang’, but Biggie Shorty was off the chain.

But all that said I do suspect that this may get some mixed reviews, probably mostly poor, but I also predict it to be the surprise hit of the summer.  It’s a really good effortless time at the movies.  So grab some popcorn, set your brain on low and have a some fun ya’ll. 

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